A Safer Tarrant County

Fanni and her Site Supervisor
Fanni Mandy and her Site Supervisor

Next year, Fanni Mandy will be attending McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She hopes to become a physician who treats people in underserved communities. Specifically, she plans to specialize in psychiatry and offer treatment to those who may lack access to mental health services. Graduating with an MPH and a Graduate Certificate in Global Health, she feels her experiences at UNTHSC provided the opportunity to work in the public health field and helped her decide the types of patients she would like to treat while incorporating public health into her medical practice. She also developed a deeper understanding of preventative medicine and the integrated nature of the patient and the environment – knowledge that she plans on using to provide patient-centered care including culturally-competency. 

Fanni completed her MPH Practicum at Tarrant County Community Supervision and Corrections Department (CSCD). Her project focused on offenders who successfully completed community supervision during the year of 2011 as part of a much larger study that analyzes changes in recidivism over time in this intervention program. Part of her experience included writing a research brief to disseminate information to lay-persons and stakeholders, such as court judges, to relay the findings of her analysis. Although it took much more than her required practicum hours to complete the data collection, processing and analysis, she volunteered extra time to complete the brief on a sample of misdemeanor offenders. Once the long-term study is completed, CSCD will have a greater understanding of factors that contribute to recidivism of offenders who completed supervision in Tarrant County. This is important because with a better understanding of factors that contribute to re-arrest, interventions can target ways to deter recurrent crime and subsequent arrests in offenders who are under Tarrant County supervision. This, in turn will help to make Tarrant County safer for its residents.